Author Topic: PC066: One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note  (Read 13457 times)

Swamp

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Reply #25 on: September 13, 2009, 03:49:14 PM
Maybe I missed a time jump in the narrative, but it seemed to me that the story was taking place in a town where it was already common to post your "confessions" as graffiti, so it was not as powerful when Anna posted hers, and also did not make sense that townspeople were calling her a vandal and a hooligan for doing so, when apparently graffito artists were so highly regarded. Also a bit of a plot hole - if Anna was writing her life story all over town, how did our hero manage to miss all the mentions of her husband, so that her revelation came as such a shock?

After the narrator described the graffito confessions, he said "I know how it all started..."  At that point you can picture Wayne and Garth (SNL reference) waving their hands and going "Didiloo  Didiloo" to mark a flash back in time.

Anna wrote her first graffito on the train cars the night after their first date at the movie theater to start taking control of her life.  If someone was going to write about her life, it might as well be her.  At first, the toenspeople didn't like it, but as it continued, it became widely appreciated, and copied.

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Kanasta

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Reply #26 on: September 14, 2009, 07:44:21 AM
Thanks Swamp- I thought I must have missed something! That's tyhe trouble when you're listening on a noisy commute... Still doesn't explain how our hero managed to miss all the graffito references to hubby though...



eytanz

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Reply #27 on: September 14, 2009, 08:49:21 AM
Thanks Swamp- I thought I must have missed something! That's tyhe trouble when you're listening on a noisy commute... Still doesn't explain how our hero managed to miss all the graffito references to hubby though...

I think - though I was a bit confused about this myself, so I'm not entirely sure - that this is an artifact of the mixed chronology - the graffity that mentions a husband was a new one (and perhaps a copycat one), not one of the original series that were written in the flashback, before Anna told the narrator she was married.

I was somewhat confused by the cow graffity - it sounded like it was one of the first ones, but Anna herself didn't seem to know what it said. Oh well.

Anyway, I enjoyed this story, but was not wowed by it. A good one, but not one I'm likely to remember in a few months time.



Anarkey

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Reply #28 on: September 15, 2009, 03:43:30 PM
Though a bit on the sappy side, this story managed to succeed for me.  I enjoyed it.  Since sap and mush are usually non-starter story qualities for me, though this seems like faint praise, it really isn't.  A story that overcomes my biases has to work twice as hard and be extra good at what it does, and this one did and was.  This one was like a lot of Jeffrey Ford stories, which start out in voices and about subjects which I'm almost certain to have no interest in and then draw me in inexorably despite all that.  Nice job, Will McIntosh and great reading as usual by Chris Reynaga.

(And btw, if we're still taking nominees for coolest name, I'd submit that "Reynaga" is a damn cool name.)

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DKT

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Reply #29 on: September 15, 2009, 03:44:56 PM
Thanks Swamp- I thought I must have missed something! That's tyhe trouble when you're listening on a noisy commute... Still doesn't explain how our hero managed to miss all the graffito references to hubby though...

I'm pretty sure the only clue that she had a husband was the line "I should feel guilty, but I don't." At least, chronologically-wise. There might have been something more at the beginning of the story before we flashback and find out how all the graffito confessions started, but I don't remember for sure.


DKT

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Reply #30 on: September 15, 2009, 03:58:47 PM
For anyone interested in anonymous confessions, I can't recommend Post Secret enough. I thumbed through my friend's copy it's a fascinating compilation of confessions people anonymously mailed on the back of postcards to an artist.


Rain

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Reply #31 on: September 18, 2009, 07:39:59 PM
I didnt really care for this story, it didnt help that the main character was just a really unlikable guy



JP_M

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Reply #32 on: September 23, 2009, 08:39:00 PM
I loved this one.  One of my favorites.  Too many authors in fantasy neglect the emotional drama, this did not.  It was so touching that when the story finished, I was riding a crowded elevator and trying very hard not to cry.



yicheng

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Reply #33 on: September 25, 2009, 09:19:38 PM
I loved this one.  The prose was lyrical and entrancing.  This felt like a Magical Realism story, and reminded me of those Griffin and Sabine books about two lovers who corresponded by mail but could not meet.  Gorgeously written and read.



AliceNred

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Reply #34 on: September 29, 2009, 04:12:45 PM
I loved this one.

To me she was a kind of unwilling modern muse.

What can I say, I love fresh twist on old classics.

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Unblinking

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Reply #35 on: December 28, 2009, 07:44:27 PM
The parts of this story that I like I really really liked, and the parts that I didn't I really really didn't.

The parts that I didn't
-the town taking up the graffiti trend with no one complaining about it.  If someone writes a love note on the side of my house, I'm not going to be thinking about how heartfelt it is, I'm going to be thinking about how now I'm going to have to repaint the damned house.  Now if the anonymous artist would come back and paint it back to its original color, or if it were drawn in chalk on a sidewalk (so the rain would wash it clean) that would be another thing entirely.
-Her mother death by coin-smothering I just found to be completely ridiculous to the point of making the whole story seem like a lame joke.  If I loosen my belief so that this can be a metaphor it's not so bad.

The parts that I did like:
-The unexplained fantasy element of elements of her life showing up in media.  That was cool and nothing I've ever seen.
-The fact that to take control of her life she wrote her own story.
-I really enjoyed the ending when he saw the movie, given the import of movies in her life.  It would've been slightly cooler (but not much) if he'd professed at the end that he'd start looking for the shop she worked in, because that's what happened in the movie, instead of just generally hoping to see her again some day.